Mirror, Mirror
by themelancholy
Summary: She's kissing her current lover while her dead ex-lover watches, and isn't this just grand? Post-2x08. Bellamy/Clarke, Finn.


**A/N:** This is my first foray into The 100 fandom. Also it's been years since I've written, well, anything so I'm probably more than a little rusty. I'm not quite sure how many chapters there'll be for this. We'll see. Forgive me for any errors, this was un-betaed.

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><p><strong>Mirror, Mirror<strong>

**by the melancholy**

**Chapter 1: Water**

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><p>Objectively, <em>logically<em>, she knows that it's actually one of her better days where her skin is free of grime and blood for a change and there are no discernable scratches to be seen, but in her mind, everything is wrong. Distorted. It is not her that she sees when she looks in the water today. Her hair is too dark, her skin too tan, her features too broad.

_You killed me, _Finn tells her in the reflection where her own face is supposed to be. His smile – why he's smiling, she can't understand—she doubts there's much to smile about when you're dead – is unfamiliar and wide and frightening, and she imagines it stretching longer and longer until it wraps a noose around her neck and pulls.

There's a momentary lapse in her thinking process before her brain registers what she's seeing and she screams. The sound bursts out of her – loud, but thankfully short – before Clarke can stop herself and she scrambles hurriedly back to shore, multiple ripples forming in the water as her fingers seek purchase on the muddy bank of the lake.

Finn is dead, she reminds herself with forced composure, inhaling, exhaling, one hand clutching at her throat as she tries to control her rapid breathing. The grounders burned his body into ashes after she killed him (they asked – her mother requesting politely, Raven begging through wrecked sobs, Clarke silently pleading – for a proper burial but Lexa ignored them and ordered for a fire to be started: there were no funerals allowed for murderers it turns out) so the chances of him coming back alive are slim to none. It's impossible, despite the outlandish things they've seen since they've arrived on Earth. Simply absurd. Right?

She's too scared to search for her – his? – reflection again and re-affirm her convictions.

There's a sudden rustle in the forest of the leaves and rubble on the ground being disturbed and Bellamy appears a moment later, his gun poised defensively in front of him. He's breathing heavily, so she figures that he ran the entire way here, although she can't understand why he would bother. The peace treaty between the grounders and the sky people as they are so aptly named is in full effect now and it's unlikely the Mountain Men would find themselves here anytime soon.

Hurrah for peace and unity, Clarke thinks bitterly to herself. The request to storm Mount Weather and retrieve their people is under review. Still. "The logistics are complicated," her mother told her the last time she asked.

Logistics. Right.

(A part of her wishes that the Ark never landed, or that it landed somewhere else far away from her so she would never have to see her mom again. But only a part of her—she's still her mother, after all. Clarke wishes she didn't have to remind herself so often.)

Bellamy's eyes falls on her lone figure on the shore and dips briefly to her bare chest that she forgot to cover (because who has time for modesty these days when there's grounders and reapers and mutated animals on the loose?) before he averts his gaze pointedly and drops the gun to his side. "What the hell," he says flatly by way of greeting. "We thought you were getting murdered back there."

"Don't get too excited," she mutters. Her clothes are sitting beneath one of the trees and she makes sure that Bellamy's still looking in the other direction before she gets out of the lake and throws them on as quickly as she can. Not that it matters anyway—privacy is moot nowadays and by now they've all seen each other at various stages of undress at one point or another. Some more than others, if she remembers the girls that frequented Bellamy's tent in the early days correctly. "I thought I saw a water snake and got scared."

It's a weak excuse as far as excuses go, and from the way his eyebrow raises to his hairline she can tell he thinks so too.

"A water snake?"

"Yes. A water snake. A very big and intimidating one."

"In the water."

"Well, that _is_ where water snakes are typically found," Clarke snaps. Bellamy turns around just as she manages to shimmy her pants up to her hips and their eyes meet. She doesn't like the expression she sees on his face. It's too close to pity for her liking. This is Bellamy. The Bellamy Blake she knows is cruel and stubborn and reckless and loyal and vicious. He does not do pity.

She will not forgive him if he pities her.

"And was it?" he asks after a long moment. His dark eyes search hers—carefully and intently as they often have as of late. _What are you looking for_? she wants to ask. _What do you want from me?_ Is he waiting for her to break down like she suspects Octavia of doing, or does he want to call her a killer and a liar like Raven does every time their eyes meet in camp?

"Was it what?" she asks instead.

The corner of his lips lifts slightly in amusement and she finds herself mirroring his smile against her better judgement. "Was it a water snake?"

Her smiles falters, and she glances back at the lake.

Finn waves at her. _Are you happy Clarke? Are you happy with what you did to me?_

Bellamy follows her gaze, frowning, oblivious.

"No," Clarke finally says, turning away. "It wasn't."

After that, she starts to see Finn everywhere. On bits of scrap metal, behind spoons and forks and knives and stray bullets, staring back at her when she's looking in someone else's eyes. It's all very distracting, to be honest. She wishes it would stop. The other day she almost paralysed a kid because she was holding a scalpel and Finn popped out of nowhere from the glint of the steel. Luckily, Octavia was there to stop her. She didn't want to think what would've happened if she wasn't.

"Go away," she demands after she washes her face in a bucket of water and finds Finn looking morosely back at her. It's the third time she's seen him this week. "You've caused enough trouble. Leave me alone."

_I'm dead, Clarke. I can't help that you keep thinking about me._

"They say talking to yourself is the first sign of madness, you know."

Clarke startles, swearing when the bucket tips over and water sloshes on the front of her shirt. "Damnit, Bellamy! You need to stop doing that."

"_You_ need to refine your senses," he returns smoothly, one shoulder propped up against the doorway. It's late and almost everyone is back in their tents now. She guesses that he just finished his shift on guard duty. "I've been standing here for a while."

She relays the past five minutes to herself and tries to figure out if she's done anything particularly incriminating. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"I wanted to see if the rumours are true."

"What rumours?"

"That you've been speaking to yourself."

There's a long stretch of silence as they both regard each other warily.

"I'm not crazy," she tells him before she realises the words are coming out of her mouth. But it's true. She's _not_. Really, she isn't. She just sees her dead pseudo-ex-boyfriend-but-not-really-person whenever she looks at her reflection, that's all.

Perfectly normal, see?

He continues to look down at her – she wishes she were taller in situations like these because it's such an unfair intimidation tactic, honestly – until it begins to get on her nerves because between a moping dead-but-not-really-dead Finn and a brooding Bellamy she feels like she's had enough silent non-conversing conversations to last a lifetime.

There's a movement as Bellamy finally shifts from his stance and the next thing she knows, his hand is cradling the back of her neck and he's pulling her towards him.

Clarke's eyes widen. Aside from the one lingering hug they shared after being reunited a month ago, they haven't touched since. And why would they? It's not as if they were ever particularly touchy-feely in the first place. If anything, they've always deliberately avoided invading each other's space since they already argue enough as it is.

She raises her hands to push him away instinctively but while the grip around her neck isn't tight, it's enough to keep her rooted to him. The consequence of this is that she doesn't know what to do now that her hands are already hovering awkwardly mid-air so she presses one against his abdomen while the other clutches the broad expanse of his shoulder. Her face is so close to his, she can see the light smattering of freckles on his checkbones. For some stupid reason, the sight of it makes her breath hitch. He catches the action, and the hand behind her neck tightens slightly in response.

"What are you doing?" she whispers, although she's not quite sure why. It's not like anyone could hear them anyway.

"You did the right thing."

Her stomach lurches, but she holds his gaze. "Killing Finn." It's not a question.

He nods. "There was nothing you could've done to save him. We would've all died if you carried out the plan Raven suggested."

"Maybe," she says, hesitating, "But-"

"No buts," he interrupts with a firm shake of his head. "For the love of god, just listen to me once, princess."

She flinches at the word princess, but manages a laugh. "Look at you. You're actually a big softie, aren't you?"

It might be the trick of the light, but she swears she sees his cheeks colour slightly. "Whatever," he says gruffly. "The point is, you're going to be alright, okay? Raven will come around. You're going to be alright."

"I'm going to be alright," Clarke agrees, and pretends that she doesn't see Finn's sorrowful face reflected in Bellamy's eyes when she looks at him.


End file.
